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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Dropbox Experiment

I've been trying out Dropbox, a file sharing utility that will not only allow you to backup files online and sync files between computers, but will allow file sharing with others. The service gives you 2 GB of storage. The best part about this utility is that it is free.

Once you sign up, you place files in your Dropbox directory on your PC and these files are then accessible from any other computer. Simply just log into the website and you can access your "home" files from a library or anywhere else.

Another feature that I'm experimenting with is the file sharing feature. You can designate a directory as "shared" with another user, and that directory is synced each time either one of you updates the files. So, for example, you could share a directory with family members and each one upload photos from a family reunion, etc. That way everyone has access to the photos, preventing them from being lost due to hard drive failure, etc.

If you recommend the service to others, and they sign up, Dropbox will give you additional storage space as well.

Right now I am sharing files with a researcher of the Salamonia, Jay County, Indiana. I've been copying some of my obituary and tombstone photo files into my Dropbox folder to share with her.

2 comments:

I've just started using DropBox myself and I'm finding it to be very very useful.

I don't have any files shared currently but when I have a spare moment at work I often work on my tree and its a lot easier to upload to DropBox than having to remember my memory stick or email myself.